Guest Editorial by Kevin Keane President and CEO IAPHC, Inc. The Graphic Professionals Resource Network

And on the third full day of Graphing the Expos, the Christian Science Monitor announced it will end its 100 year old status as a printed publication and move its reportage entirely online...

ADF's versus Craftsmanship

Xerox got it right in its Graph Expo news about adding Aqueous coating on its iGen digital printing presses:

"In-line aqueous coating on a digital press is a first in the industry and enhances productivity through "lights-out" print manufacturing - where the entire printing process from job submission through finishing is completely automated and therefore more profitable."

Some in the industry have lamented VistaPrint (and a few others) who have leveraged their use of MIS (management of information systems) to manufacture in bulk very small printing projects like business cards and to do so very quickly and apparently very profitably. They are, if you will, Automated Document Factories.

It is not co-incidental that one of the first announcements from Graph Expo was from Komori -- 4 Over Inc is buying six Komori Lithrone presses for three new plants the firm plans to build in Florida, New Jersey and Texas. Whether the market is SOHO or trade printing, the ability to use information technology to group like jobs, and to do so with an absolute minimum of operator intervention is a noteworthy business model.

Some have opined that VistaPrint is in the marketing support business, not the printing business. And like the road not taken, therein lies all the difference. Is 4 Over in the printing business or some other game where speed kills? Note that their website allows for RSS feeds to update you on your jobs progress.

For a long time, we have argued with vendors about the inevitable feature creep found in the latest box of joyful noise ("program your press to turn the coffee maker on every day and to remind you about the dentist appointment next Tuesday!") Our argument: The customer doesn't care! They want fewer copies than ever before, and they want them faster than ever before, and while it is heresy to folks who master color science and other arcane pursuits -- more and more customers are less and less impressed by awesome quality. Good enough, done faster, is good enough.

Put another way, a generation raised on RGB images on all kinds of video screens, has a different, and maybe lower pain threshold for poor colour fidelity. An inconvenient observation, and what if it becomes an inconvenient truth?

PURL's and the generation gap.

Most parents have been amazed at the sheer profligacy in text dexterity on the part of their offspring. One curious, and we think little commented on aspect of this phenomenon is that many kids actually are processing information. They are typing, sometimes whole words, and communicating thoughts, and reading, and reading some more. They are, oddly enough, acquiring new fluency in at least two of the traditional 3 R's. This may be a new thing, but maybe not a wholly bad thing.

For an entertaining divertissement, read, (a real printed book please) David Crystal's new book: "Txting: The Gr8 Db8" (Oxford, $19.95.) Altho, he ruminated, such a tome might be perfect for the Kindle...

Importantly, the mad texters acquire most of their news via non-printed video screens.

So, the printer who masters the use of PURL's to supplement traditional printed projects could be on to something uncomfortable and bleeding edge. It doesn't matter if the curmudgeonly parent thinks that asking said parent to go visit a PURL (that he was told about via a printed direct mail item) is an un-needed extra step in the process of communication (feature creep as it were.) What dear old Daddi-O is forgetting is that Junior is getting the first news about his PURL for the coolest new flip-flops not via a printed direct mailer but on Junior's Star-Trek inspired flip-phone. Back to the future indeed. If your whole universe is ordered around acquiring information via video screens, then to suggest you visit a PURL is precisely targeted wisdom. Just click thru to digital apotheosis.

Which means that marketers have to slice and dice their target demographics even more carefully.

If you are selling fixed income annuities, your audience may prefer the tangible comfort and contemplative essence of a printed piece in their well worn paws. And indeed a PURL might be over-kill. But if your sales pitch is aimed at a person interested in AF fashions, or collegiate life, or a military career, or an MP3 super device, then maybe, or even probably, it will make sense to include PURL prowess as an additional, more fully targeted arrow in the quiver of the direct mail printer.

Microsoft owns a digital/interactive marketing agency called Razorfish. On 28 October the firm released some market research on the "Connected Class." And offers this caution: "Direct marketers should define the communication channel appropriate for the relationship they expect to create with their consumers. Texting and mobile social networking, for instance, remain extremely personal forms of communication-and should be treated as such."

The hole in the whole bucket of opportunity (to marry print with other firms of media) is the mailing list. Suppose you are 12 years old and a history buff and therefore ask Mom to subscribe you to a history magazine. And now your mailbox is full of beautifully printed offerings to join the wine of the month club. Someone sold a list with not enough parameters. No whine before its time, or at least not until you are 21.

We think Ben Cooper of The Print Council said it very well in his 25 September letter (mailed, in an envelope even), as he wrote about the planned Graph Expo roll-out of a new campaign to keep print relevant and not an old-school, offline media:

"This will not be a slogan campaign and will not feature bumper stickers. While these things may make us feel better, they don't sell more print. We want to make sure that the people who decide among print, broadcast, internet and whatever other form of communication is competing for dollars are armed with facts when they make those decisions. This also will not be a "print instead" campaign but a "print with" campaign..We are in a multi-channel world that cannot be ignored."

Miffed with MIS and misery?

The great folks who put on Graph Expo, have for a number of years enunciated some key action items for survival in these trying times. Again this year, MIS was high on the list of six critical technologies that must be mastered by all printers desiring to survive. In fact it was number One, for the third straight year. A fully implemented MIS facility: "...requires an operation where the personnel are properly trained, the data is collected in a timely fashion, a full range of software modules are installed and used, and the resulting information is used in managing a print business for profitability." And the number Two critical technology is: "Information technology as a core competence." Charlie Corr, now with Mimeo.com weighed in with a video interview at Graph Expo and said indeed, you just gotta have MIS folks on staff. OK, let's chew on that.

We bet that RR Donnelley, and Quad, and Transcontinental and Consolidated Graphics and maybe another 100 names have the muscle and the patience to have fully embraced Critical Goals Numbers 1 and 2 above.

But what about everyone else?

We had lunch in mid-October with a printer who is shooting for a million dollars in sales if not this year then maybe next. Sales are growing. Financial ratios look solid. And the nerve center of the shop, the nexus of all MIS and IT systems is a manually updated scheduling board where everyone can see where things stand at a glance. High tech it is not. Workable it is.

In early September the estimable Frank Romano had a really interesting article published in the Australian online journal "ProPrint". He wrote, about the printing industry in New Zealand:

"Small-to-medium businesses dominate the industry, as is the case for US and Australian industries, with 85 per cent of printing enterprises employing fewer than 20 people. This predominance of small businesses is a worldwide feature of the industry. For example, three-quarters of print shops in Germany employ fewer than ten staff. In Asia, about 95 per cent of companies are classified as small businesses."

Hey that sounds familiar. In fact, for decades, the bromide has been that 80% of the printing industry employs less than 20 people and has sales of under $2 million.

So, we wonder how many of them, even if they employ junior and his many coloured array of digital devices, could make even the tiniest halting step towards implementing a full MIS and IT mission in hopes of achieving an Automated Document Factory, where all the jobs are perfect and no human ever fails.

In fact, even if they had that most pure desire, they simply could not afford it.

We know of one shop who spent upwards of $100,000 on one of the well known MIS product offerings displayed at Graph Expo and after 18 months of effort were darn close to going live with the system.

So where do small printers who don't have an extra hundred grand and 18 months of tinkering time turn?

Sassafras for the Suffering

Times are tough gentle reader.

Profits are slim.

Pressures for super fast and super efficient are increasing.

And as Xerox correctly noted about aqueous on the iGen, anything a printer can do to automate may help add a bit of profitability.

Even if one of the many small printers around the globe wanted a full blown MIS/IT competency, they couldn't afford the human capital, the working capital, or the time and patience to get on board. It's just not realistic.

Enter the SaaS based solution. Software as a service.

Perhaps you have heard the term cloud computing -- the notion that 'somewhere, out there' sit the servers through which all applications party on. Bill Gates has said for years that we will someday no longer feel the need to buy our own copy of MS Word and have it occupy our own hard drive, but will simply rent the use of it, while the main application sits on a server somewhere.

Ironically, in the very week of Graph Expo, the world is paying attention to cloud computing. The Economist ran a huge and multi-layered analysis in its October 23 (printed!) edition.

"For one, operators of computing clouds such as Amazon and Google have shown that this is a far more efficient way of running IT systems. Secondly, many firms will find they have no choice. The way in which their IT infrastructure has grown is proving unsustainable. Most corporate data centres today are complex warrens of underused hardware that require more and more people, space and power to keep them going. The current economic malaise will increase the pressure on companies to become more efficient. More has to be done with less, which is cloud computing's main promise."

And that little firm Mr. Gates founded is planning to be a player too.

27 October 2008 LOS ANGELES-Microsoft has unveiled its broad cloud strategy, formerly known internally as "Project Red Dog," and now known as Windows Azure.

At the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, announced Windows Azure, the cloud-based service foundation underlying its Azure Services Platform, and highlighted this platform's role in delivering a software plus services approach to computing. (Emphasis added.)

So, with all due respect to the folks who urge all printers, even the small firms that are 80-95% of the industry to invest in MIS/IT competency, it appears there is another way. If one could rent an MIS system, which was sold under the Software as a Service (SaaS based solution) using cloud computing to deliver the goods, the issues of complexity, competency and just plain unrealistic expectations can be managed.

Brew yourself some sassafras and contemplate that notion for a spell.

Guilt Free Graphing

In this environment, a lot of printers may have wished they could have attended Graph Expo. And there were many fun things to see, Xante had several really neat ideas (the Illumina products) which are perfect for the smaller printer.

And as printers of every size try to distinguish print as a key element of a multi-channel marketing campaign for any and every customer, there are many things one can see at Graph Expo to help differentiate your shop in the eyes of the client. Print can be less static, less one dimensional if we take advantage of innovations in paper and inks and finishing techniques. Using lenticular or die cutting or green products can all change the perception of print.

But none of that changes the bottom line need to make the production of print ever more automated.

Indeed IAPHC members will be learning more, in short order, about a SaaS based solution for print shops of common size which is affordable, understandable and created by a printer for printers. And this solution while in attendance at Graph Expo was not in any booth, but rather networking with the attendees. Like all SaaS based solutions, it isn't static, but dynamic, not tethered to a booth, but powerful in its connective tissues.

If you missed this Graph Expo, that's a shame but understandable in this environment. Next time, you ought to go. It will make you think in new and perhaps uncomfortable ways about the business of print.